Voting for the Fucking President of the United States

Middle school may not have told you the entire story.

Every four years we — citizens of the United States — hold a presidential election. And every four years I watch as “friends” on Facebook rip each other apart about how we elect a president. Let me help.

Eligibility

Remember taking a test in middle school on the requirements of a presidential candidate?

You will find the following in Article Two of the United States Constitution:

• At least 35 years old
• Natural-born citizen of the United States
• Resident of the United States, no less than 14 years

Lets go through each of these one at a time.

An individual may begin his/her campaign BEFORE the age of 35, but must be at least 35 by Inauguration Day. Inauguration day is January 20th, or the 21st if the 20th is a Sunday.

A natural-born citizen is born within the legal borders of the United States. This does not restrict where parents chose to raise their child. A child is also a natural-born citizen if they are born abroad by a citizen of the United States. [Ted Cruz IS an eligible presidential candidate]. There is a debate between natural-born and native-born citizens. The United States Supreme Court will decide what differences, if any, there is.

An individual may begin his/her campaign BEFORE they have been a resident for 14 years. They must fulfill this requirement by Inauguration Day.

The Twelfth Amendment says the Vice-President must also meet these requirements. That’s it, nothing more.

Campaigning

A presidential candidate campaign is broken into two parts:

• Primary elections and caucuses
• Presidential nominating conventions

Neither of these are part of the Constitution.

State and local governments hold primary elections. A primary election does not determine the presidential candidate nomination. Instead, it determines how many delegates to each party’s national convention will receive. A primary occurs by secret ballot.

Caucuses (the term is no longer caucus) are private-held events emulating a primary. A caucuses is more open, and public.

Neither of these voting processes actually chooses who will win at the National Convention. Primary elections and caucuses assign the number of delegates at a national convention. Pre-pre-voting. In essence you are voting on people to vote on people that you will vote for on people to vote for the presidential election. <-that is actually accurate.

Both the Democrats and Republicans hold national conventions. The delegates — chosen at the primary elections and caucuses — will vote on a final party candidate. The official presidential candidates will announce the platform they will run on. A platform is their opinions on important issues like: abortions, free speech, military use, government spending, and so on.

This is all about the campaign, this voting doesn’t actually decide the next president. Third parties do not need to go through this process, seriously. None of this section is included in the Constitution.

Voting for the President

“Your vote doesn’t count,” is a phrase often used during the last leg of a campaign. Why do people say this? Because its mostly true. Presidential voting is broke into two parts:

• Populous vote
• Electoral college

The populous vote is what you will do on the second Tuesday in November. This is not how the president is elected. It is possible for a candidate to win the populous vote, and not win the presidency.

The electoral college assimilates the the number of members of Congress. There are 538 electoral college members. In order for a candidate to win the presidency, they must have an absolute majority. The absolute majority is 270. Each state determines who its designated electoral college members are. They cannot hold federal office, either elected or appointed. Candidates for the electoral college are nominated by their state political parties months prior to Election Day. This means, who you voted for the house and senate is a good basis for how an electoral college delegate will be chosen.

If you vote party A as a district representative, then party A will have an electoral college nominee voting for party A. Not all nominees have to vote for their designated candidate. This is called faithlessness. Twenty-four states can punish electoral college members who do not vote their pledged candidate. Electoral college members may also not vote for either candidate.

This was the basis for the issue that occurred in 2000 between Bush and Gore. It was not the populous votes; it was the electoral college votes. Electoral college members did not vote as pledged. This meant that while Gore received the populous vote, Bush still won the election.

What if neither get a majority? (Yes this has happened, twice. First in 1801 and second in 1825). Then the House of Representatives votes with a two-thirds majority for the presidency.

What about the vice-president? A president may be chosen by absolute electoral college majority, BUT a vice-president may not be chosen. Yes, this has happened (in 1837). The Senate then votes to elect a vice president, by majority of a whole number. This means at least 51 of the 100 votes must be for one individual.

Its quite convoluted and sometimes confusing, but remember, your vote does count, kinda, maybe, sorta, if you think hard enough about it.

Conclusion

It wasn’t always this way, in fact it was much simpler, like most countries. There was just campaigning and one presidential election. The Constitution says nothing about primary elections or caucuses or national conventions. In the end its all just a large money maker, for everyone, except the voters, who’s votes don’t actually count.